This invention relates to an improved vaporizer for vaporizing liquid fuels to produce dry vapor in a single pass and low liquid volume having improved heat transfer and controls for the vaporization of liquid fuels in response to varying degrees of fuel vapor demand and temperature requirements.
The prior art vaporizers have all been of a relatively large size and designed so that their application was limited by their use being compatible with design rather than their design being adapted to be compatible with the existing design of a vehicle or other existing application.
The prior art vaporizers which were small and easily adapted for mounting on vehicles tended to operate at a super heated temperature and relatively higher pressure to ensure complete vaporization of the liquid to be vaporized. Also, some prior art vaporizers developed dams at the exit of the vaporizer to prevent liquids from coming through such as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,990,432.
Further, prior art also provided super heated passages outside the ports of the vaporizer to further insure vaporization would be complete or that condensation would not occur upon reaching the colder parts of the system.
Also, prior art vaporizers were not easily and readily adaptable for adding to existing vehicles without great expense in modifying the vehicle.
Many of the prior art vaporizers attempted to heat large quantities of the fuel to be vaporized either by preheating or by having large quantities of fuel heated and ready for vaporization. Having large quantities of fuel present made the vaporization process very slow in starting up the vaporizer. In vehicles this approach was extremely undesirable.
Also, with large quantities of fuel present, the problem of over pressuring the system was great. Operating at higher pressures was dangerous because the pressures could rapidly exceed the safe level of the vaporizers.
Also, such art as U.S. Pat. No. 3,508,606 issued to Blanchard provide teachings that channels are needed for the controlled distribution of fluids both to and from the previous body, but fails to teach the critical effective size of passage relationships, and clearly does not recognize the importance of providing inert surfaces in the system.
Also, prior art systems have been provided with carbon build-up, and over a period of time become so carboned up that the whole system is blackened and closed off.
Many prior art patents have addressed the increase use of wire and other materials to increase the surface area of the heat exchanger, as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,195,627 issued to Goodloe, but none of the prior art patents or devices relate to the relationship of critical space between these materials nor have they related to the surface tension of the media being used.